


the end of summer

by duckmoles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 06:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18615034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: Steve doesn’t cry until later.(Moving on.)





	the end of summer

**Author's Note:**

> mostly canon compliant, as the tags say.

Steve doesn’t cry until later.  

It’s funny, he thinks. The way he can see someone die, the light leaving his eyes, the final breath escaping from his lips, and not shed a single tear, but when confronted with – with a fucking cardboard box, filled with scraps and pieces of Tony’s memory, there’s nothing he can do but sob.

Rhodey had given it to him, a week or so after the funeral. “Hey,” he had said. “Tony was busy, these past five years. I thought you might –“ He had broken off, after that, to wipe away a stray tear.

There had been a lot of tears that day, from people who Steve knew and those he didn’t. Tony had touched so many people’s lives, and Steve had never known. He talked to a young boy who told him about what Tony did for him, how Tony swept in one night and left just as quickly. A snow-quiet night. A potato gun. Panic attacks and a lost father. A kid who Tony didn’t have to care about but did. Tony always fell into things so quickly, felt so deeply when he did.

“I’m studying engineering,” Harley had said, looking out at the wide expanse of water rippling across the lake. Tony’s first arc reactor was somewhere out there. Returned to the earth from whence he came. A quiet beat. “Robotics.” He hadn’t said anything more, doesn’t elaborate. They both know.  

There had been a lot of conversations like that, in the first few days. Stilted, half-implied thoughts not quite articulated. Words don’t do Tony justice at all, for all that he had made a living off of it. There was too much to say, and yet not enough to say, and they couldn’t be help but be struck silent.

There had been other things, instead.

Bucky had held Steve tight as they watched the memorial drift away. Steve had placed his hand on Peter Parker’s shoulder and squeezed tight. Nebula had knelt down, placed a little piece of folded up paper among the flowers. Rocket had let her pet him. One hand in another, stolen glances and meaningful, careful, gentle gestures. Tony had always been a man of action. It felt fitting.  

Tony meant so much to each and every one of them. But in the wake of him, he left things behind, as he always did. Scattered parts that the survivors have to piece together to do right by him.

And for Steve, he has this.

The cardboard box is beaten, wrinkled and falling apart in some places where it was clearly water-damaged. It’s heavy, but Steve carries it easily up the stairs of Tony’s little cabin. The whole house is such a far-flung contrast from the penthouse or the Malibu house or the spartan room he’d kept in the compound, so clearly lived in and beloved. A home, something Tony had made his own.

He can hear little Morgan downstairs, chattering to Happy or Pepper about something or another. She’s so bright, just like her father. They had been so gracious, letting Steve and a few of the others take up spare rooms while they figured out what they were doing next, and the attention seemed to help Morgan.

Steve didn’t know how much he missed being part of a group as close as this until he finally had it again.

The box. He places it on the floor and tries to breathe.

It’s hard to believe that eleven years have passed since the first time they met, fighting Loki in what would turn out be the first battle of a long, seemingly endless war. That those eleven years have been distilled to a 24 by 12 inch box. Tony had written a will, but Steve doesn’t know what was in it. He doesn’t know if this was something Tony had even wanted to give him, or if this was Pepper and Rhodey and Happy taking pity on him.

He doesn’t want to open it.

But it’s Tony, and at the very least, Steve owes him this. (He owes Tony a lot, but this small thing. He can start with this.)

The first thing Steve pulls out is a bracelet. It’s – he recognizes it. God, he remembers Tony working on it. 2015, just before Ultron. Steve had stumbled into the workshop at the tower, surprised to see Tony tucked into a corner, staring at a holographic screen and muttering to himself.

“Tony?” Steve had asked.

Tony had turned to him. Steve can remember the look in his eyes, the way he always got when he was doing what he did best – create.

“Evening, Steve,” Tony had said, a little too full of caffeine and adrenaline. “C’mere,” and Steve couldn’t help but go wherever Tony beckoned. “Look, look.” Tony slapped a bracelet on him, tightened it, and pressed a button.

Steve jumped as the glowing blue hologram popped out of the wristband, in the shape of a shield. “Tony!”

Tony had grinned. “It’s much more portable. And stealthy, though I know that isn’t your strongest suit,” he had said. “And I worked out a lot of the kinks. Lemme just –” He picked up a wrench, tossed it at the shield.

It hit Steve square in the face, passing through the shield effortlessly.

“Jesus, Tony,” Steve had said, rubbing at his forehead and trying to take the bracelet off, but he had been smiling.

“Maybe a few more kinks to work out,” Tony said. He was smiling too, the laugh lines at the edges of his eyes crinkling. His eyes were bright.

Steve remembers staring at the wide-eyed happiness on his face. Remembers wanting to –

Well. It’s all seven years too late, now.

And then Ultron happened. And then, and then, and then.

Steve never gave another thought to it, but Tony must’ve kept working on it, because it looks much fancier than the last time he saw it, slimmer and sleeker and much more subtle.

He tries it on.

At the touch of a button, the shield springs out. Same size, same shape, same design, even the same weight as the original. A perfect replica. More than perfect, if it works the same way.

Steve looks around and picks up a pen, tossing it at the wall. When it bounces back, it hits the shield and clatters to the ground. It works.

With another press of the button, the shield disappears, as if it had never been there.

Steve – Steve wonders how long Tony had been working on it. Why he had continued. Did he ever think they would be a team again? Had he been – had he been working on technology for Steve all this time?

The box is filled with things like that, both finished and unfinished. New materials for his suits, stronger and lighter and more flexible; sketchbooks filled with drawings of the team’s uniforms, the designs elegant and practical, the line work neat and tidy; new weapons, new technology. There’s even a set of razors, stylishly modern but with a weight and grain Steve had been used to. Steve didn’t think Tony remembered him complaining about constantly cutting himself when shaving, all those years ago.

Steve reaches up to wipe his eyes. Morgan’s downstairs. He can hear her settling down for bed. He doesn’t want to wake her.  

The unfinished projects hurt the most.

A half-written out idea to improve the composition of the paint on the shield so it would stop chipping away; bullet points about Steve complaining about the armor chafing around the joints that trail off in the middle of a sentence; a reminder, to himself, to not forget Steve’s birthday the summer that they fought in that airport.

Steve wonders what Tony was going to get him.

Steve doesn’t know why Tony had wanted to give them these. They aren’t his. They were Tony’s, meant for a Steve that had never been there. But – but Tony is dead, and Tony can’t have anything.

He should have lived, Steve thinks, struggling to control his breathing. He – his fists are bunched up together. He wants to hit something. He’s tired. He wonders if Tony had felt the same way while he breathed his last, if Tony had felt desperate, aching for breath, grasping at life. Or if Tony had resigned himself to his fate. If he had known it was the only way. If he spent his last moments content. Steve hopes he did.

Steve puts Tony’s notes on a new type of carbon layering for Steve’s arms down on a nearby table. He doesn’t want to get them wet.  

There’s a note, too, in a small red envelope. “Steve,” it says in Tony’s quick, sharp handwriting. Steve’s saved it for last.

It’s a hard thing to rip open, and not just because of the tremors in Steve’s hand. The paper’s creased, and a little coffee-stained, and folded over so many times it falls open in Steve’s lap from the tension.

 _Steve,_ it starts. _We always knew I’d kick the bucket first, huh?_

_I want you to know I forgive you. I hope you’re able to forgive me. And whatever happened, I want you to forgive yourself._

_Tony._

Move on, Steve had said, over and over and over these past five years to countless numbers of people, never able to do it himself. And Tony had tried, better than the rest of them. And he had come back to save the world anyway, leaving behind this: a restored world. Hope. A box full of tech and designs and projects he kept working on even while they weren’t on speaking terms. A shield.

Something worth living for and protecting. Something that Steve has to be around to protect.

Steve stands, wiping his face with his sleeve. He’s tired. It’s been a long day, and he hasn’t slept in a long time. Maybe it’s time for him to rest.

In the morning, he’ll make pancakes with Sam and Bucky, laugh at maple syrup stuck on Morgan’s nose, help Happy wash the dishes when they’re done. One day at a time.

He keeps the bracelet on.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> un-betad. this movie really, really got to me. I cried on and off several hours after finishing, and the pain of it is still hitting me in waves. 
> 
> i'm [duckmoles](https://duckmoles.tumblr.com) on tumblr, and i hang around on discord at a bunch of places by the same name.


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